We met at the government dock at Horseshoe Bay on a calm, sunny, late summer day. In their boat, we headed for Snug Cove, where the ferry docks.

Snug Cove has been the island’s social centre for more than a century, dating back to the days when cargo steamships and others such as Terminal Steamship’s luxurious S.S. Britannia brought cottagers, visitors and partiers headed for the dance pavilion.

Snug Cove is the island’s “downtown,” with a marina, post office, library, several pubs and restaurants, bakery, general store, a grocery store (whimsically named The Ruddy Potato) and other services.

But we don’t stop. Instead, we head up the island’s coast past Cates Bay, one of Bowen’s oldest cottage communities where generations of several families have spent summers, dating back to the 1920s.

Nearly half Bowen’s residents now commute (including high school students who ferry each day to West Vancouver). But until the 1950s and the start of the car-ferry service, Bowen was primarily a seasonal tourist destination rather than a community with so many young families that the elementary school is bursting at the seams. They share the island with artisans, empty nesters, summer cottagers and a few multimillionaires who drop in occasionally to spent time in luxurious, waterfront retreats.

A while ago, it was rumoured that actor Harrison Ford had bought a house listed at $13 million.

“A friend of mine accosted him in a restaurant and demanded to know whether it was true,” says Bob. “Ford said, ‘No, I haven’t bought the house. I bought Bowen Island and you’re all to be out by Tuesday.’”

After rounding Hood Point, we tie up at the McCaskill’s dock at Smuggler’s Cove and start the long walk up a circular staircase that hugs the rock face to their 1930s bungalow that was barged here from Victoria more than 20 years ago.

They bought it as a vacation home in 1994 in the midst of a raging February storm, during a weekend visit from Calgary. They went back at Easter. But it wasn’t until a return trip in May that they finally saw their spectacular view across to Gambier Island and – on clear days – to Black Tusk.

In 2000, after their kids finished high school, Bob and Linnea moved here permanently.

They admit that island life and especially dark winter days with icy winds howling down from Squamish aren’t for everyone. But it is for them.

“I used to say that every sleep I had on Bowen [while working in Calgary] added a couple of years to my life,” says Bob. “Moving here was realizing a dream. I’d had enough of cities, offices and urban neighbourhoods. So I was quite happy to leave that all behind.”

Their plan had always been to return to the West Coast – they’d lived in Vancouver while Bob went to law school, articled and worked at a big downtown firm.

And even on that nasty February weekend, Bowen fit their requirements.

Rural, yet within a 20-minute ferry ride of the city.

A tight-knit community where it’s safe to leave doors unlocked and safe for kids to hitchhike, but one with enough amenities that you don’t have to leave.

As we walk along the narrow road behind their house that is bordered by a lush second-growth forest and a stream-bed that’s lined with ferns, Bob tells me that nights here are silent and black. Only Vancouver’s nighttime glow disrupts the stargazing.

A few hundred metres beyond their driveway, the road turns into a two-track, private lane with alders arching over it.

Almost all of the island has been logged at least once, but the second- and third-growth forests are lush and lovely enough that consideration is being given to establishing a national park on some or all of the Crown land that accounts for roughly 40 per cent of the island’s 72 square kilometres.

A vote on Parks Canada’s concept plan is expected later this fall.

It’s a controversial proposition that grew out of the municipality’s unpopular decision to allow a luxury housing development at the south end at Cape Roger Curtis.

Among the arguments against the park are that it would over-burden the ferry service and add another layer of government to the island. In addition to a municipal council, Bowen also falls within the jurisdiction of Metro Vancouver, the Islands Trust and the provincial government, which administers the Crown lands.

We continue the tour by car, stopping at the charming Artisan Square, a five-minute drive up the hill from the ferry terminal.

There’s also Cocoa West with its amazing truffles, where you can stay overnight. But it’s not bed and breakfast, it’s bed and chocolate.

And, more surprisingly, there’s Milo’s hand-drawn poster on several shop windows. Need someone to care for your reptiles while you’re away? Milo will do it for $1 a day.

Speaking of pets, a few kilometres away is the chi-chi Bowen Island Dog Ranch, which offers deluxe holiday services for pets while their owners are away. Included in the service is a thrice-weekly shuttle service to West Vancouver, North Vancouver and the West End.

At the south end, we stop at the challenging nine-hole Bowen Island Golf Course to admire the stunning view to the water.

A young deer grazed by the clubhouse. Since a wolf-dog that terrorized the community was captured and killed earlier this year by a trapper, deer are the only threatening wildlife on the island and they are dangerous only to gardens and drivers.

A gnarly tree flanks the first hole. It was the hanging tree in a short-lived 2009 miniseries called Harper’s Island. The island is a popular film location. Clan of the Cave Bear, The Russia House and Double Jeopardy are among those shot here.

As we head back toward Snug Cove, Linnea points out the island’s largest employer, The Orchard, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre. Ironically, its previous incarnation was as a bed and breakfast called The Vineyard.

We end the day with a fine Italian dinner at Tuscany, forsaking dessert to catch the ferry.

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